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LITTLE MORE THAN AN hour had passed before they came upon a dying wood. The withering branches and metamorphosed boughs clung to greying trunks. On the forest bed the brush was also, in appearance, ashen light.
“Feels like we’re almost upon him,” said Math, pointing all this out as the destructive signs of a Medeanite at work in Faerie. The darker his sorcery, the worse it became for Faerie lands.
Though the henchmen had by now caught up, they paused for breath, stale as the air was. It was eerie waiting, here. Nourishing themselves seemed impossible for want of appetite as they rested within the boundary of the spindly trees, a reflection of the death they were preparing to confront.
Astocath wandered around the area in search of anything that might seem useful, though he kept as close to the company as he could. As he peered through an extended line of bushes, he found a stagnant stream with barely the energy to flow. Deducing Gethrond would need water, he suggested they would do well to follow this stream upriver through the woods.
Their agreement was interrupted by a sudden howl that pierced through their very minds: “Let me join you!”
They jumped. Their horses baulked, and the group looked around in alarm. An owl took flight through the trees.
“He’s fighting scared,” snapped Math, at the same time trying to ease his mare.
“But he’s not attacked us by surprise,” said Tulan, steadying his own horse.
They looked at him as the horses settled.
“Well? What does he mean?” Mordrak asked Astocath quickly.
Astocath looked at Math, and then to Jorlon. “Gethrond killed Ifhrd.” His voice was matter of fact, a statement rather than an accusation. "And a whole city. We cannot possibly let him join us!”
“No!” cried Jorlon. Pointing at Mordrak he exclaimed, “He killed Ifhrd!”
“Enough!” shouted Astocath.
“If Tell dies, I believe his fledgeling empire will collapse. I doubt Prince Tabor can hold it together right now. The lands will be cast back into petty wars again unless someone can ably take over, which I very much doubt. Has the Circle contrived this whole dilemma to be accepted on your terms?” Mordrak asked.
“So? We all say the renegade pays for his crimes,” Jorlon snarled at Mordrak.
Math looked at Mordrak. “You should know well that it is against our laws to allow maverick wizards to run amuck as this wizard has. Are you with us, sir?” Math then addressed the knight with vehemence. “If you had misgivings towards us, you ought to have aired them before now. We cannot sog him and request him to stand by the stake and ask for his tinderbox to light the faggots beneath his feet. We have to hunt him down. He has acted outside the jurisdiction of our Circle, which you have seen for yourself, yet he is going to be a formidable opponent once we catch up with him.”
Mordrak bristled. “I don’t trust this connivance. It seems to me your Circle has manipulated events to seem to become the saviours of Tell’s troubles. I tell you, it won’t wash with me!”
“Very well.” Math braced himself. “Dwell on any suspicions you wish to draw. Just see for yourself what happens.”
The sound of horses approaching brought their attention to danger. Preparing for the worst, they dismounted and braced themselves for an attack. Then they saw that it was Math’s own henchmen drawing up.
“Count Mordrak, meet Haik and Talmar.” Math coldly introduced everyone whilst he was at it.
Suddenly, Mordrak fell to his knees with his head in his hands. The whole company flinched and then watched as dark outlines seemed to batter against the knight’s helmed head with clubs or maces. The wraiths had returned with a vengeance and seemed to have the power to draw at his every nerve and muscle. Mordrak convulsed as perhaps his very essence was spilled to the ground. Soon he flailed around, rolling from his belly to his back, his knees drawing up beneath his chin and his feet kicking out again.
He surely convulsed with a pain Tulan had never before known Mordrak to suffer. They could all almost feel the agony that racked his body, and still the clubs seemed to beat especially at his head.
“What’s going on?” asked Math in alarm, “I’ve done nothing to him!”
“It’s those wraiths I mentioned,” replied Astocath in dismay. Quickly kneeling by the knight’s side, he said, “So close to the summoner they’ve a power I’ve not had a hint of reckoning.” Being so close himself to Mordrak, he could hear the wraiths cursing them all as he fought to save Mordrak from hurting himself.
Math incanted for a while, which seemed to ease Mordrak’s fit, and so Math continued. By the time the mage was finished, Mordrak lay breathless on his back. As he began to recover, he gasped, “They got into me! They got into me!” And he groaned with a prayer that they had not wounded his soul or mind.
“We can’t go against that devil with him like this,” said Math firmly.
“His rune-blade,” said Astocath. “Perhaps we can send him into the ether to confront them. With you at hand, I’d feel happier about it now than before.”
“That is about the surest way,” agreed Math. “I think someone should go on his behalf, in his place—and not,” he stared at Tulan, “his squire. Someone with basic magic skills. Jorlon, you know how to use a sword?”
However, Mordrak was cursing above these suggestions. “No one’s taking my place! I’ll sort it out myself!”
“If he is willing, I’ll go with him.” The apprentice frowned at Mordrak, who was now raising himself to his feet, and he wished he could sound more enthusiastic than he felt. He would not have much opportunity to see to the end of Mordrak under these circumstances.
“Are you willing to step into the ether and give ‘em what they deserve?” asked Math, looking disapprovingly at the knight.
“Anything,” Mordrak gasped. “Anything to be rid of them.”
“Very well,” agreed Math, and he helped Mordrak balance. He instructed him and Jorlon to grip each other’s hands and not wander too far from the door into the ether that he was making. “Jorlon, this is not so much a gate as a small door that will not last long.”
“Must Jorlon come with me?”
“We have no choice,” returned Astocath.
Mordrak drew his rune-sword and clasped it in his hands, then drew his fists together. The sword pointing upwards between their faces, Jorlon gripped Mordrak’s gauntlets and they poised themselves ready for any trouble to come.
Math began incanting against the screeching of the owl, which had apparently returned. He screwed up his eyes as he shouted loudly against the hooting that was competing to the point of distraction. The bird was shrieking in the magi’s tongue: “You can’t do it! You cannot do it! I’ll not permit you!”
But it was done and the two of them, Mordrak and Jorlon, saw the light of day flicker. It failed completely for a moment before it flickered again, and then they found themselves surrounded by the wraiths in a twilight. The youth-like creatures were barely recognisable as human, for their ugly countenances were laughing and sniggering, jeering and heckling, slowly circling the couple in a slow dance. They seemed quite at home within the darkness of this ethereal plane. They produced lights at will and danced hither and thither as spectral images.
Jorlon wants you in the pit. They stabbed fingers at the bewildered knight.
Dead and buried forever and ever.
“Enough!” Mordrak hissed; he became all the more angered that their laughter made his threats sound feeble. Nevertheless, it was actions that were to count, and he felt as if he could not fail. He could not afford to fail—there was too much to lose. His King, the empire and not least of all his sister, depended upon him. Now he braced himself to do what he would never have wished to do, and he poised himself to strike at any and all of the children. This time surely they would be laid to rest, to face whatever fate had in store for them. They could surely not return again.
He was aware that face to face, somehow his mind was now free of their insipid voices that had constantly whispered inside his head. The time had come; he could confront them directly, though he never knew the terms. Would these souls cease to exist? Or would they find the home where they belonged?
He stabbed his sword at perhaps the largest of them. The wraith jumped back, and from a safe distance, he ducked his head forward and backward, taunting and daring Mordrak to cleave his neck.
Come on, come on, he crowed, ushering Mordrak forward with a flurry of his hands as erstwhile he stepped farther and farther backwards, drawing him into a sort of circle the wraiths were creating around both of them. Jorlon stood looking either cowed or assessing the situation, Mordrak could not be sure which.
Mordrak swung his sword from side to side, keeping the circling wraiths at bay. Sweat seemed to stream down his spine, though the ether was temperate. Jorlon began to incant, and he barely dared hope Jorlon’s incantations were effective and would somehow subdue the malicious, youth-like wraiths. He feared also that Gethrond might consider making a personal appearance at any moment.
Now he could hear Math’s voice begin to encourage him from within his head. “How many?” Math voiced the inevitable question.
“Seven,” replied Mordrak. He was glad he was not left entirely alone even if it was with Jorlon beside him.
“Uh-oh.” Math’s voice rang like the sudden peel of a high-pitched bell. Mordrak sensed that Math was under threat.
The unexpected alarm within Mordrak’s mind caused him to miss his strike at the wraith’s teasing head.
“We’ve got our own troubles.” Math’s words seemed to trickle away like a drying stream of hope.
And with this, Mordrak began to panic, but his sword somehow calmed him. It began to sing softly and gently in place of all the tumult that had ever been in his consciousness. It urged him to strike when he would have thought better of it. The blade had a wisdom of its own.
The wraith scorned him. “You are ungrateful. All the help we give you! Jorlon hates you! Beware!”
Mordrak swept the blade around as the runes inspired him, and he cleaved the wraith’s head from his shoulders. He felt a moment of surprise at how easy it had been. As the head fell, dropping down as if into an endless chasm where its body followed, a shriek of alarm clamoured from the others. The victim himself had not a chance to react. Strangely, there was no blood.
With his confidence renewed, Mordrak confronted them all with a fortified spirit of vengeance. He considered all the townsfolk of Nan-Enn who had forfeited their lives as victims to the plague of gloom. He had grieved killing the children, but now to his reckoning, these were devils with full knowledge of what they were doing.
Jorlon’s hands were now spitting flames, keeping the wraiths from him and increasing his courage. The roaring spikes of fire, each of which sparked from his fingers, made the spectres cower. Mordrak was also encouraged by Jorlon calling to him, warning him from wandering too far away. “So many traps!” he cried. Perhaps Jorlon was trustworthy after all, or at least for the moment.
Mordrak’s sword throbbed with power, flashing and hissing with runes moving up and down the shining blade. He sensed it wanted him to move towards the fray; he sensed it guiding him past the traps that Jorlon had warned were all around them. None of these could he see, but trust to the beckoning runes.
He laughed under his breath at the wraiths, who began screaming and pleading for mercy as he advanced upon them. As the sword drew them like moths, Mordrak felt the sword draw more and more power as the wraiths’ energy failed and he wondered how much self-control he really held over this weapon. Nevertheless, the wraiths were visibly dwindling. Using only fiery hands, Jorlon was herding them towards him as he carefully uttered arcane secrets.
Even so, Mordrak gained little satisfaction over their plight. In truth, he wished he could have reasoned with them, but instead, he slashed out against them. His deepest wish was that perhaps they would be laid to rest as befit the spirit of a child.
Now the sword was continually urging him against them, its song gentle and comforting, promising no harm would come to him. Further beneath the soft enchantment was an intelligence that revealed he was fighting Gethrond’s spell of spiteful caricatures, dark reflections of worse than mischievous children. Indeed, dark reflections of devilish children. Or perhaps this sword was devilish, leading him into a worse predicament than before?
Mordrak continued to fling himself at the youths with rapid, successive suddenness that surprised with every thrust. The blade swung and stabbed, true to every movement. Mordrak felt his saliva curdle upon his lips as he relived the time of the slaughter in Nan-Enn. The children were falling in the same way as they had then, only this time there was no blood. Would they heal only to return? A lifetime of training with the sword heightened his frenzy. He wished only to stop and think, but the blade goaded him on and on, and in any case, he could not afford the luxury of stopping for one second.
Sweat was seeping through his every pore, and now he wondered: were they just children? He found his will to cut them down sap away as his regret deepened. Was there an alternative to slaughter?
“You must do this!” Mordrak heard Math appeal to him. It was as if the mage was standing right next to him. “Gethrond is tricking you. They are not children as you perceive. They are Hel’s spawn!”
Mordrak’s emotions were vacillating and his heart felt fit to seize with horror as these child wraiths panicked. They screamed like children, their voices high-pitched and horrified by their fate. But the largest and strongest fought against the weakest, using them as shields to delay their fate to the rune-sword in exactly the opposite way they had tragically died at Nan-Enn. At that time, they had attempted to protect one another. They had first given their lives with brave dignity. It was not so this time, which eased the knight’s conscience. They were now as helpless as the first ill-fated time, and they fell one by one as imps. Now each one died and disappeared deep into the eternity of the ether, into a bottomless pit, each one screaming.
Mordrak felt a pang of concern that Jorlon might abandon him, but with a moment’s reflection, he did not consider Jorlon’s chances of betrayal good right now. Neither would Jorlon easily deceive any real enquiry as to how Mordrak came to be lost, if that were to be so.
***
JORLON’S DISTASTE FOR Mordrak rose like a bed of nettles within his stomach. He felt himself convulse with bile as he watched the frantic swordsman hack down the spirits, and the rune-blade drew energy from the air as it hissed in Mordrak’s hands. However much he chose to believe the wraiths’ powers were somewhat overcome by his own spells of confusion, Jorlon wished he could have dared affect Mordrak with permanent madness. But it would not be subtle enough right now and he would not make mage-hood. Besides, Astocath needed him alive for the time being.
All was over in a few minutes. They had released the spirits of the children from their accursed bondage. Jorlon’s concern now was for his own safe return to Astocath—and he supposed, begrudgingly, Mordrak’s too.
Both of them stood, not quite knowing what to do. Neither believed standing and waiting was appropriate, but then there was nowhere to go. They looked at each other, anxious that Math seemed a long time in returning to them, but neither spoke. Their anxiety increased the more as they awaited Math; in fear of being utterly lost was much kindled by the deprivation of their senses; they could feel no warmth and no cold, neither could they feel the ground beneath their feet for they were effectively floating. They could not see each other clearly at all, they might be viewing wisps lost upon a lonely and foggy moor. They stood closer to one another as time passed, both filled with terrible nightmares.
Mordrak wondered if Gethrond was now fighting the company, and the consequences that would happen should he win did not bear thinking about, left here until some chance took them home. More likely they would die a horrible death of one sort or another.
Mordrak sighed. “They often promised to leave me in a pit.”
“Traps are all over the place,” replied Jorlon.
Mordrak would sooner face such a trap alone rather than with Jorlon to haunt him. “Are we in a pit?” he asked.
“I think not,” Jorlon replied confidently. “Just be quiet.”
***
AFTER WHAT SEEMED LIKE at least two hours, a figure appeared before them. Fearful that it was Gethrond, they flinched back a step. Mordrak raised his sword. The blade did not sing nor seem willing to fight, and suddenly the reluctance to do so bit harshly into Mordrak’s spirit. He realised the sword had been reluctant to perform the thrust that had cost Ifhrd his life. Mordrak felt mortified and confused. Was the sword enchanted not to fight magi? Was it of use against Gethrond? His questions would have to wait, for it was Math who now appeared and no other.
“Couldn’t find you anywhere. You’ve moved a long way off. We’ve troubles enough.” He spoke with a great annoyance. It was as if he rebuked unruly children bored of remaining in one place rather than await their elders.
“What’s happening?” Jorlon asked in surprise of Math’s scorn.
“We’ve had a set-to with Gethrond. Even now he’s still pleading for reinstatement to the Circle. We fought a no-end contest with his blasted simulacrum. Waste of effort, energy and time.”
“Eh?” asked Mordrak.
“It is a sort of illusion of the caster, but physical,” said Jorlon quickly.
“Why don’t you just finish him off?”
“Because it’s not really him.”
Mordrak feigned to understand; perhaps wizards could use many bodies. He shuddered with the thought. The image was horrifying. “Are you more powerful than Astocath?” he asked, looking uncertainly at Math. He could not but ask himself, ‘How insecure am I feeling?’
The mage did not even hint as he said, “Have we time for such questions? Come!” They were silenced as the mage led them to his temporary gate.
Brought back to the awaiting company, they found themselves quite far away from the place where they had entered. The henchmen looked fearful, as did Tulan who stood with them. Mordrak did not recognise this part of the woods. A stream ran nearby. The waters stank more than they had downstream, so at least they had moved on in the right direction.
“How is it with that accursed warlock?” Math asked Astocath.
“He seems to know a lot more about us than I expected. I think he is scared. No sign of him nearby, but he’s not entirely fled.” Astocath shook his head. “His arguments for clemency are very convincing.” He dared a quick glance at Mordrak as if to gauge a reaction. “He’s not yet hurt any of us in this conflict. He seems to believe his plea has the more substance for it.”
Despite moving upstream, getting closer to the renegade, Mordrak felt peace of mind and a freedom that came with that. He walked his horse with a hope that he would never suffer such a malicious haunting again. He clutched the hilt of the rune-sword with a hope for the future. For the moment, he hardly dared believe the ordeal was completely over.